Hitman Developer Lays Off Half Of Its Staff

IO Interactive, the team behind last year’s Hitman Absolution has laid off half of its workforce.

The Hitman developer is “making significant changes at IO Interactive as we align our business against a changing and challenging market,” a statement sent to Develop reads. In the wake of the changes, Hannes Seifert, the former production director will take over as head of studio for IO Interactive. The press release further explains IO will focus solely on developing further Hitman games and confirms a new title is in pre-production.

The statement also explains as a result of the layoffs and realigning, IO has “taken the difficult decision to cancel other studio projects and initiatives at IO and reduce the workforce in this studios, which will impact almost half of the employee’s currently at IO, as we make internal adjustments to face the challenges of today’s markets.

The statement concludes with: “For those affected,we are extremely grateful for the hard work which they have contributed, and where it’s possible and appropriate to relocate staff to open positions at other studios within the group, we will try to do so. We are also reaching out to other companies for outplacement opportunities. We sincerely wish them well in their future careers.”

Hitman Absolution was released in November last year and was pretty well received by both fans and critics alike. Analog Addiction gave it a very nice score despite some problems.

George Sinclair is an editor for Analog Addiction, the home of the latest news, reviews and previews. You can find George on Twitter and his blog on IGN. Be sure to follow the OFFICIAL Analog Addiction Twitter as well!

This is really happening everywhere at the moment like with Valve about a year ago even the products received amazing scores, technology is changing too fast which is why I’m not so sure about becoming a video game developer… yet but I’m glad they can go some place although there’s the place for a reviewer. It’s not like they’re gonna stop making games… right?😀 BTW I really need to play this game. One of the reasons why I won’t go straight to the next gen. I have games I want to buy… since 2006 and with so many cool games in the previous gen, it’s not a good sign for me. By the time I play a lot of PS4 will be when the Playstation 122 is released lol.